Creating a Class Web Site

A class web site serves as a central place, or at least a starting point, for students to find course information, applications, communication tools, and resources. Blackboard can serve as such a hub. It is readily accessible to students (who might have other courses on Blackboard) and the university automatically populates the course shell with the names and email addresses of your students. But, depending on how you want to use your class web site, there are many services and applications on the internet that might better suit your needs.

You can use external sites with Blackboard. Create a link to the external site and place it in the menu. You can choose to have the site appear in the main Blackboard frame or as a new window. You can also choose to have the external site as the course entry page.

Control Panel → Course Options → Settings → Course Entry Point.

There are free applications for building web sites on the internet. Here are a few you might consider.

• Pageflakes | Examples: Teacher Edition / Music Education
• Netvibes | Example: Evolution
• Google Pages

You can easily create and link together multiple pages. It is also simple to add different widgets for calendars, RSS feeds and video presentations.

Here's an example of a complex class page from KSU that dynamically receives the latest news and information about the class topic; students can post research data; and they can see when someone has posted to the class blog or wiki.

• Mediated Cultures: Digital Ethnography at KSU

Consider adding RSS feeds, a calendar, a to do list